iTunes Playlists Disappeared? Recover Missing iTunes Playlists Easily

If you have updated iTunes or moved your iTunes music library you may find that your song playlists seem to have disappeared. The good news is they aren’t actually missing, iTunes just isn’t finding them. There is no bad news, because you can recover the playlists rather easily, here’s how:

Recover missing iTunes playlists

This will work to rebuild missing iTunes playlists in Mac OS X and Windows.

Quit iTunes

Open the iTunes Music folder, on a Mac this is by default in ~/Music/ and in Windows it’s in \My Documents\My Music\iTunes\ or \Username\My Music\

Drag the file labeled “iTunes Music Library.xml” to your desktop

Drag the “iTunes Library” file to the desktop as well (make sure this is no longer in your iTunes folder at all)

Now relaunch iTunes

Before doing anything else, go to File -> Library -> Import Playlist

Now navigate to your desktop to the “iTunes Music Library.xml” file that you placed there earlier and select it

iTunes will recreate your playlists, and any iOS devices you have synced with iTunes will resync their playlists as well

The reason we are ensuring these files are on the desktop is to have a backup in the odd case that the rebuild doesn’t work. You’ll notice after you have reimported the playlists that the ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’ file will be rebuilt in your iTunes Music directory, once everything is functioning you can safely delete those files from the desktop.

I’m not really sure why the iTunes playlists disappear during some transfers and updates, but it seems to happen randomly. The last time I ran into this I was moving iTunes music from a PC to a new Mac which worked wonderfully until I discovered none of the playlists were there. Just moving the file and then reimporting it did the trick though.

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What a pity! The next time you can use some tools to restore the iTunes library. Such as Wondershare and FonePaw iOS Transfer. They can easily to backup and transfer files between iOS devices and computer. You can also backup to iTunes without iTunes. It sounds unnecessary, but if you are bored of iTunes and iCloud, you will understand.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
I had many carefully compiled playlists that all disappeared during an update (the music did, too – but through apple help I “found” where it had gone and had to reimport it all (talk about hours of transfer……but at least the computer did it by itself once I told it what I wanted! and THANK HEAVENS my original library was on a separate drive!) That said, iTunes offered NO helpful advice on recovering the lost playlists (which still have a weird thing going on – each folder lists ALL the music on my drive – but the individual playlists in the folders are what they were before……so I can live with that)……then……VOILA! Your clear and totally effective help was here……THANK YOU!! (yes, I know, repetitive – but it bears repeating!!)

scroll your mouse over PLAYLISTS on the left sidebar. Show or Hide will come up to the left of the word PLAYLISTS. Click on Show or Hide and your PLAYLISTS will Show or Hide. Simple but it happened to me on a PC for no raisin.

I did the above at first with no result because prior to finding this gem, I lost my files and then clicked the find my media button. Big mistake – as that changed iTunes Music Library file and included everything on my computer (lots of stuff with no playlsts).

GOOD NEWS! I found another way to salvage the files via one further step. I located the last decent looking .tmp file that was made a few days prior automatically in iTunes during a music purchase…and renamed it to “iTunes Music Library” and did all the other steps as written above Oila! All the playlists are back and saved with cue times and all other info.

Hi Rob, I know this was a long time ago, but did a real long time to regain your tunes back to itunes? My windows explorer is just saying connecting with the connecting bar about a 3rd of the way up. After I double clicked Music Library this is what is happening. It may be ok but thought I’d ask. Thank you. John

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I got a new laptop and migrated everything from Windows Vista to Windows 7 (not without a lot of trouble). WHen I upgraded my iPad software tonight and sync’d my iTunes, it deleted all of the playlists. The system replaced the XML file, so I had to restore it from a back up. It worked like a charm!! Your tip saved me hours of aggravation!

This doesn’t work for me :(:(:( I’ve tried twice, two different ways from the external hd I’m using to transfer data from old Vista laptop to new Windows 7 computer, and no dice! Its just doubling the generic playlists… Any other advice?

Thanks for this post and thread. I have been wracking my brain to fix my playlists that went missing a few days ago thanks to an iTunes update. I could see the actual playlists as separate files but not remember/figure out how to import them to iTunes correctly.

Hopefully this will work for me. I lost a couple hundred playlists in the update. I’m leaving the import to work its magic overnight. There’s about 1/2 tb of music and audio files to update all over again. I wish I’d known this trick before. I’ve manually re-created all of my playlists at least twice in the past from things like this happening.

My problem is that the file iTunes Library does not contain all of my music. I recently burned a cd and that is all that is there. I used to have 3000+ songs in iTunes and they are gone. My folders only contain that one cd. I have NO idea what happened or how to fix it!

This did not fix my playlists – just duplicated empty versions of the generic playlists. I did notice before I tried to fix it, that one of my playlists (made my myself rather than the standard apple ones) had been duplicated but was empty. It was this extra copy that made me realise the rest of my playlists were nearly empty. They were ll there yesterday and I have only added 1 album since but about 6 albums are showing up (in total) in various playlists so I have no idea what is going on. Please say there is an actual fix that will get my playlists back!

My computer recently crashed!!! Last time it did I was able to get all my music back no problem,but this time, I have absolutely nothing!!! Any possible way to get back the songs I payed for without paying another $50.00???

Hey tried it and it didn’t recover the actual playlist on my iPod. My other play lists are there but this one playlist (which happened to be my best and biggest…grrrrr!) is gone. It only disappeared when I plugged it in to add more music.

This solution seems to restore the itunes list but not the playlists physically on my iPod. Help!!

Hi I was being clever and deleted my playlists from my iphone, when I plugged into itunes, ALL my playlists from my mac deleted. I have tried to restore the play lists like advised above, but it has not put any of the playlists into itunes and no music has gone into the folders. ~really annoying!! can anyone help. I have tried to put some playlists together manually, as I did this, I was thinking would this deter the restore and this is why its not working?? what can I do, I am djing in less than two days… HELPPPPPPPP??
PLeaseeeeeeee.

Thanks – trying it now. Probably too late for me though… my library and playlists disappeared. Recovered the library and the playlists returned… with nothing in them. So I’m trying this out. We’ll see.

This happened to me as a result of subscribing to I-Tunes Match, which I have to say does not work. Of the over 10,500 songs in my library it declared about 1,200 of them “ineligible” including recently uploaded songs from legally purchased CDs. It makes no sense. I was already seriously annoyed. Then this happened with my playlists and library.

I backed up my itunes library to my external hard drive yesterday and now my playlists have ‘gone’ (are still there but with no songs) this is on both my mac and ipod. I tried this method and it didnt work just duplicated the playlists empty. can anyone help me as I dont really want to remake my playlists again.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
My PC crashed and left me with the blue screen of death. Didn’t have iTunes backed up properly, couldn’t find the iTunes Library file… but when I did, this worked like the dickens. Really, a million thanks for your help.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I transferred all our iTunes library to an external hard drive this morning and ‘lost’ all my playlists when I re-directed the library! This way of getting them back worked 100%. I was so worried but can now breathe a sigh of relief :) Thanks again!

Perfect! I had never lost my playlists before and I don’t know why I did. I was on the phone with a “senior” supervisor, who was telling me to import the .itl file. When that didn’t work, I suggested your fix. He insisted that the .xml file did not contain playlist information and that if the .itl file didn’t work, I was out of luck. With nothing to lose, and while I still had him on the phone, I tried your fix. BAM! The playlists all popped up with the contents intact. I suspect all along that this would work because when I put the title of one of the playlists that I happened to remember in the Windows search bar, the .xml file popped up. So I knew it had to be in that .xml file somewhere! Thanks again. Not only did your fix work, but it was so easy to follow, especially with the picture included. I’m a professional musician, so these playlists meant a lot to me. You were a “lifesaver!”

I have all my iTunes (3600 songs and 15 playlists) on an external hard drive and want to keep it there. My laptop crashed and had to start from zero again. I downloaded iTunes and it was empty. I transferred my iTunes library to the laptop. 300 of my 3600 songas ar enow duplicated and I have lost all my playlists. What did i do wrong? I want to fix this even if I have to start over.

8:Now you should see a 3/4 folders and one iTunes icon that says (iTunes Library.itl)

followed this step but it didn’t work for me so I tried to go to another folder (This PC–> Documents [Contains music and other audio files] –> Music –> iTunes –> and then select the file…iTunes Library XXXX-YY-ZZ.itl

and those just showed up easily! although some of them (about 2-3 of my latest playlists) are still missing but it’s ok I still have them on my iPhone.

I still have hope on the internet because of you, mate.
Thank you! ขอบคุณน้า **big hug**

Hey folks. Replaced the original hard drive on my Mac with a SSD. When I restored my iTunes library from the backup, my old playlists were gone. I tried the solution above, but it didn’t work.

More precisely, iTunes looks different than in 2010 when the solution was originally posted. There is no longer an “iTunes Music Library.xml” file listed. Only an “iTunes Music” folder, which when clicked, opens to individual artists, which in turn opens to albums, which in turn opens to songs.

There is also an “iTunes Library.itl” file (along with iTunes Library Extras.itdb and iTunes Library Genius.itdb).

There is also a “Previous iTunes Libraries” folder, which opens to individual library backups, e.g. “iTunes Library 2015-07-28.itl”

I tried the steps above using the iTunes Library.itl file rather than the .xml file, and also using an individual library backup file (the one listed just above). No luck.

Is there a way to locate the iTunes Music Library.xml file in the new iTunes?

It’s been a while since I lost the playlists but I’m still grieving.
Hope someone can help.
Rock on.

Hi guys, I don’t understand one thing here. The author’s instructions are (sroll to the top and have a look!):

“Drag the file labeled “iTunes Music Library.xml” to your desktop
Drag the “iTunes Library” file to the desktop as well (make sure this is no longer in your iTunes folder at all)”

Why on earth would you remove the library files from the iTunes folder and place them on the desktop, then delete them? Then they are gone from the iTunes folder and quite simply deleted. I reread this, just to be sure.

Sorry to sound like Columbo, but that just bothers me. Does he not mean “copy” the files from the iTunes folder and place the “copied” files onto the desktop – then the original files are still stored inside the iTunes folder, just in case something goes wrong.

No. The whole point of this is to move the configuration file outside (XML) of iTunes so that iTunes has to create a new one. You are putting in on the desktop and NOT deleting it so that you can restore it to iTunes in case it does not work as expected (by putting it back inside the iTunes folder).

It is a simple troubleshooting technique that can work with many applications too, even things like wi-fi configuration.